Time Lady
by dgirl
Summary: Set in the future, a drunken Doctor reveals parts of his past to his unknowing daughter.
1. I want to go home

Disclaimer: I own only the daughter; all other characters belong to the Beeb.

Spoilers: The End of the World and Dalek, but very mild ones.

Inspiration: I was reading Lunar1's fanfic, Rose in Bloom, and the lines, "I want to go home," "Doctor…your home's not there anymore," jumped out at me. What would it feel like to wake up every morning, knowing the place you were born no longer existed? If the Doctor lost the escapism of travel, could he cope with living in one place? I went through several ideas, before deciding to attempt my first one.

Plotline: Set in the future, a drunken Doctor reveals parts of his past to his unknowing daughter. Possible longer story of his daughter discovering the truth about her father, finding the TARDIS and all of them going traveling. That all depends on the fans' response so please R + R.

**I want to go home**

Lilly Tyler was just returning from a late-night visit to the bathroom when she heard the sobbing. It appeared to be coming from downstairs. It was late and if her mother caught her awake, she knew she'd be in trouble. Her father probably wouldn't mind. He wouldn't care if I died tomorrow, the ten-year-old thought bitterly. He couldn't care less about any of us anymore. He used to be fun, but now he just sits downstairs, staring into space and drinking. It was the drinking Lilly hated the most. Her father always smelt of booze and once, he'd even picked her up from school drunk. That humiliating experience was still burned into her mind, and she suspected it always would be. The crying appeared to get louder and Lilly made up her mind. Creeping down the stairs and trying desperately not to be heard, she went to investigate. Pushing open the living room door, she walked in and froze.

He's never been this bad before, was her first thought. Her father was sat in his armchair, looking into thin air with a bottle of whiskey in her hand and sobbing. He slowly turned his head to look at Lilly and beckoned her closer. Nervously, she approached him, wincing at the strong smell of stale drink around his body.

"Got shummit for shu," he slurred as she crept closer and she nearly bolted to the safety of her room. Only the sight of fresh tears rolling down his cheeks was enough to keep her walking closer. Her father put his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket, which she'd never seen him without, and pulled out a key. He leant forward and pressed it into his daughter's hand.

"TARDIS key," he said, by means of explanation, "'Bout thime shu had one."

"A what?" she replied, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"TARDIS. Shu never sheen my girl, have shu? My TARDIS, my ship, my girl…" With that, he trailed off and took another long gulp of whiskey.

"Wh-What's a TARDIS?" stammered Lilly.

"Thime ship," he slurred, "My girl, she been everywhere. All shover time."

"T-T-Time ship?" Lilly asked, he courage starting to wane. Her father must be going mad. Time travel was just something you read about in books. Time machines didn't really exist. She decided to risk another question. "W-Where'd you get her?"

"From shome," he said, and the tears really began. "Shomes gone now. All gone. No shome left. Daleks got it."

"Daleks?"

"Kill everyshing. Everyshing in sight. Burned my planet. Time Swars."

Now Lilly was really getting worried. Her father was saying he came from another planet and that his planet had been destroyed. She decided to play along and see what happened.

"If you're from another world, how'd you and mum meet? Is she an alien too?"

"Sno, all human, smy Rose. Smy gorgeous Rose. All human. Shust me who's alien. Shust me. Last of smy kind," he replied, sobbing freely. "Shmet her when she was 19. Shmew up the shop where she shworked."

Panic began to set in. Lilly's mother had once told her, in answer to her constant questioning about how her parents met, that the shop she'd worked in had been blown up on the day she met Lilly's father, but refused to say by who. Could her father be telling the truth about that? And if so, what about everything else?

"What happened next?" she asked.

"Gravelled the tallaxy. Fell in shove. Told sme we had to come back to Shearth when she shfound out shu were on sher way, shettle down. Sho more travel. Shay here, in this dump, have kids. Shay here forever!" His sobs became howls and Lilly heard movement from upstairs. Her brothers and sisters had been woken by the noise and were demanding her mum to tell them what was wrong. Quickly, Lilly stuffed the TARDIS key in the pocket of her pajama bottoms as the sound of running feet on the stairs were heard. Seconds later, Rose Tyler burst into the room.

"Sho more thime travel! Shay here forever!" the Doctor howled, his shoulders shaking and tears pouring down his cheeks, and Rose's face went white. How much had he inadvertently told their young daughter, the daughter whom she had craved a normal life for? Did her daughter know about the Time Wars, the Daleks, the fact that death was her father's constant companion? Despite all her best efforts, all of their sacrifices, would the circle of death around the Doctor reach out and ensnare the next generation?

"Go to bed, Lilly," she yelled, out of panic rather than anger.

"But-?"

"Just go to bed!"

Laying in bed, Lilly could faintly hear her father's sobs and her mother's attempts to calm him. She mulled over what she had heard, her little hand clutching the TARDIS key. Her mother's screaming at her hadn't just been because she was downstairs in the middle of the night. She hadn't seen anger in her mother's eyes, she had seen…fear? What was her mother afraid of? What didn't she want Lilly to know? Somehow, Lilly vowed, she would find out.

So, what do you think? Should I write more? If so, R + R. If you like it, tell me. If you don't, constructive criticism only please. Also, if you can think of a better title, please say so. The plot's changed a bit so the title doesn't really work anymore.


	2. Time Lady

Thanks for all the reviews. I've taken everything you've said into consideration and the Doctor will certainly be dropping the 'drunken loser' routine, as one reviewer put it. I can see you're not impressed by it and, as you'll all have realized by now, I can't type drunken speech to save my life. So for the rest of his adventures, the Doctor will be drunk only on life. Also, the idea of Lilly traveling alone, getting a male companion and annoying her mum is great. I'll probably do that in a separate fic though.

Not sure how this fic will progress. I've got as far in my mind as the Doctor and Lilly getting into the TARDIS and heading off to see the universe and I know how the fic will end, so any ideas for a middle would be great. Thanks again. Also, this fic was started before the last few episodes of the 9th Doctor/Rose series so if parts of it clash, that's why. Also, I know I haven't a chance of living up to that ending so I'll just write my view on the Doctor, not the series' view. Hope I don't offend too many people from now on. :)

Note: I should have put this in Chapter 1, but this is a 9th Doctor/Rose fic and therefore AU as well. I've also done a tiny bit of research and thrown in a slight reference to the cybermen, the Master and the Daleks. Not sure how accurate the reference to the first two once, having only seen snippets on Doctor Who Confidential but I did my best. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: The Doctor and Rose belong to the BBC, everyone else is mine.

Spoilers: Same as the previous chapter, I think.

Plotline: Lilly learns of her father's past and goes off to travel the universe.

Rating: K+ for mild bad language.

**Time Lady**

"You pathetic, drunken loser!"

Lilly froze at the bottom of the stair as her mother's shout rang through the house, accompanied by a sharp crack with could only have been a slap. Creeping silently to the living room door, which was slightly ajar, she peeped around it.

"Was that really necessary, Rose?" asked the Doctor, rubbing his left cheek, where a handprint in red was beginning to show.

"Don't you even remember the sacrifices I made to keep your past a secret?" Rose yelled. "And you go and get pissed out of your head, again, and blurt it all out to her!"

"The sacrifices you made?" the Doctor yelled back, finally getting up out of his chair. "What about the sacrifices I made? I'm stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, can't even leave the village, let alone the planet, because I'm not 'normal' enough for you! Because you're scared someone'll realize I'm an alien and your ordinary, boring little life will come crashing down on you and you might have to acknowledge the truth! That I don't belong here, Rose. I belong out there," he said, gesturing at the sky through the living room window, "Out there, amongst the stars, exploring other worlds, getting into danger. Not stuck here in a poky little cottage in the middle of the country. It'd have been alright if we'd have stayed in London but no! The big-city woman is a country girl at heart. She wants a better start for her children than the one she had. What about their father? What about what he wants. You just don't care, do you? You just don't care that I'm wasting away in here. It feels like the walls are closing in on me. I need space, Rose. I need space and danger to help me forget." He paused for a second to draw breath, and then continued. "It used to be easy. Whenever I started getting a bit homesick, I'd fly off to some faraway world and get into trouble. Hard to feel homesick when you're fighting for your life. But when you had Lilly, I agreed to settle down. I didn't know it would be this hard, Rose. Like I told you, I don't do domestic. So I stayed here, day after day, looking after the kids while you worked. And seeing them grow up, it made me think of my family, the family they'll never know. And I couldn't fly off now. I had to stay and try to ignore how I felt. But it wouldn't go away. Week after week, month after month, year after year, that sick, painful feeling just twisting inside of me, eating me up from the inside out like some kind of cancer. I tried, Rose. I tried so hard to ignore it. And then I had a drink. And the pain started to go away. So whenever it came over me, I drank. Then the next day, my head'd hurt, I'd feel guilty and the feeling'd get worse. So I'd drink again. It was a vicious circle, Rose. The worse I felt, the more I drank. The more I drank, the worse I felt. On and on, over and over. I was trapped here day after day with nothing to do but drink and think about home and drink some more. It was like screwing down the safety vent on a boiler. Sooner or later, something had to blow. It just happened to be last night. I'm sorry, Rose, really I am."

"What now?" Rose asked.

"I think I should leave," the Doctor replied, "You know I've tried to make this work but it won't. I think it would be best for us all if I just disappeared."

"What do I tell the kids?" Rose replied, her head and voice lowering.

"Tell them I've gone out then when I don't come back, tell them I'm dead. I don't care how, just make it up. It should be easy for you now. Bet you want to kill me after the pain I've put you through," he ended with a faint laugh.

"Never…I love you," Rose said, choking back a tear.

"I love you too," replied the Doctor, "That's why I have to go. So I can't hurt you or the kids ever again. Rose, I'm so sorry." He held her in his arms and kissed her one last time before walking out of the patio door. Rose sat down in the chair he'd just vacated, put her head in her hands and wept.

Lilly crept out of the back door and silently followed her father towards the garden shed. For as long as she could remember, the shed had been out of bounds. None of the children were allowed to go near it. Her father unlocked the door and went inside. Waiting a moment to make sure he didn't come back out, she tiptoed to the door and looked inside. What she saw drew a sharp gasp from her young throat. A large blue box that touched the ceiling of the shed, labeled 'Police Public Call Box', with the door open and the inside stretching on to what seemed like forever to Lilly. Her father was fiddling with something near the central column of the ship; a tall white tube attached to a base that vaguely resembled coral. She crept in through the door and towards the column. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind her and the ship started making a strange sound, a mixture between a lot of whirs and whistles and something else, something she couldn't put into words. It seemed almost like the ship was singing to her. The sound was familiar, one she'd heard in her dreams. Dreams filled with creatures in white suits, a man dressed in a long cloak and machines with domed heads and eyestalks. Machines but alive and the most evil out of the three. And women, lots of different women and this ship, but white on the inside. Different planets, aliens and death. She'd woken up screaming sometimes and her mum would come and sit with her and tell her it was just a nightmare. But it hadn't been. This ship was real which meant the dreams were real too!

"Lilly! What the f-?" Her father had noticed her standing there and cut himself off in mid sentence, only to launch off into the foulest curses of several billion languages as the ground pitched crazily and he struggled with the ship's controls, all of which the TARDIS, as Lilly had now realized this ship was, helpfully mentally translated for her. Only when he saw her eyes widen as he began a graphic description of exactly what he would do to the innards of the TARDIS if it didn't return them to Earth right this instant did he realize this and cut himself off once more.

"You better not say any of that in front of your mother," he said, as he continued to hit several control panels one after another with a small hammer he'd pulled out from under the base of the ship. "She's going to hit the roof as it is if she finds out you've sneaked on board."

"She doesn't have to know," Lilly replied, edging closer to the control panel as the ground she was standing on shook violently.

"You're right there," said the Doctor. "'Cause I'm taking you straight home."

"No!" yelled Lilly, surprising herself with her sudden fierceness. "I'm not just going home and staying there while you explore the universe and have adventures! You said you hated being stuck at home, well so do I! You can't just send me back now I know what's out there! I want to see the universe too! You gave me a TARDIS key! You can't just dump me at home when you've told me there's a whole universe I haven't seen! I won't let you! No!"

The Doctor stared, stunned, at her. It was as if he was looking at her for the first time. Those light blue eyes that seemed far older than her 10 years, those ears that stuck out behind her hair, her sudden defiance. She'd taken a stand, said no, not just let things happen to her. She was half Gallifreyan and right then, he saw that she deserved to finally be given her inheritance; time itself.

"Ok then, where do you want to go?" He paused for a second, then added, "Time lady."

What do you think? Better than the first chapter, I hope. R + R.


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